ll, having ridden boldly. It happened that the Mexican
woman couldn't read and talked little; still, I knew they'd find me
soon--it couldn't be otherwise--so I made another run for it, swearing
an oath, however, before I left that I'd come back and have that
gambler's heart.

"It was lucky I went, for they uncovered my sign the next day, and the
country where I'd hidden blazed like a field of dry grass. They were
close on my heels, and they closed in from every quarter, but, pshaw! I
knew the woods like an Indian, and the wild things were my friends
again, which would have made it play if I'd been alone, but a girl
child of three was harder to manage. So I cowered and skulked day after
day like a thief or the murderer they thought me, working always
farther into the hidden places, travelling by night with the little one
asleep on my bosom, by day playing with her in some leafy glen, with my
pursuers so close behind that for weeks I never slept; and my love for
the child increased daily till it became almost an insanity.

"She was the only woman thing I had ever possessed, and it seemed like
my love for the mother came back and settled on her. And she loved me,
too, and trusted me. Every little smile, every clasp of her tiny,
dimpled fingers showed it, and tied her to me with another knot till
the fear of losing her became greater than I could bear, till it kept
the chill of death in my bones and filled my veins with glacier water.
I became an animal, a cowardly, quailing coyote, all through the love
of a child.

"We had close squeezes many times, but I finally won, in spite of the
fact that they tracked us clear to the edge of the desert, for I had
hit for the state line, knowing that Nevada was a wilderness, and
feeling that I'd surely lose them there. And I did. But in doing it I
nearly lost Merridy. You see, the constant travel and hardship was too
much for a prattling baby, and she fell sick from the heat and the dust
and the thirst. I'd been going and going till I was a riding skeleton,
till my arms were crooked and dead from holding her, but this new thing
frightened me like those men and dogs had never done. Here was a thing
I couldn't hide from nor outride, so I doubled back and came boldly
into the watered country again, expecting they would take me, of
course, for a runaway man with a babe in his arms isn't hard to
identify, but I didn't care. I was bound for the nearest ranch or
mining-camp where a woman c